He did understand why it had to be done. He was a genius, after all.

But being a genius didn't stop Rick Sanchez from feeling pain, as his innards twisted and curled, constantly sucked in toward the black hole just to the left of his chest. He wondered why, after nearly seventy years of life, he could still feel pain.

Every morning for nearly two weeks following the incident, Rick woke in a comfortable bed with a warm meal sitting a few feet away. (Nevermind that the meal was served exclusively with a spoon, and the bed bore no blankets - though he understood that, too.) By noon, Rick would roll over onto his other side to face the wall. The meal would be cold. By evening, if he was lucky, he would be asleep once more. The meal would vanish.

Nobody came to talk to him. He wondered, idly, if there was anyone left to talk to.

He never bothered with getting up to see if the door was locked. Of course it was locked, he reasoned. In fact, aside from using the adjoined restroom (no medicine cabinet, no razors), Rick Sanchez didn't get out of bed at all. Why bother?

His daughter was dead.

His grandchildren were dead.

If he didn't eat, he would be dead too, soon enough. Of course, they would force feed him through a tube if it came to it. That was just how they were.

Rick didn't know who they were. He only knew that they wanted him for his brain. Why else go to the trouble of suicide-proofing a room for an old man likely to die of a corrupted liver? So he wasted away, shivering and sweating and dying of alcohol withdrawal symptoms until even the symptoms vanished, leaving him alone inside his own torturous mind.

Finally, when he lost track of the days, the door opened.

He stared at it horizontally for a long time. Nobody entered the room. It was just... open. He must be hallucinating. Going over a week without food was destroying his mind. He continued to lie in the ever-deepening imprint of his own body, simply observing.

A baby crawled over the threshold.

"Holy shit," Rick croaked. They were the first words he had uttered since arriving here. He tried closing his eyes. When he opened them again, the kid was looking back at him with mild interest.

"Bah?" she asked. She couldn't have been more than a year old, though she certainly wasn't an infant. "Bed?" she tried again.

"H-hey," Rick said, uncertain of himself. He sat up slowly, blinking hard at the snowy lights that flickered across his vision. He tried to stand, and sat back down hard. "Uh, sorry," he muttered. "Haven't eaten in a-a few days."

"Bed bed," the baby responded. She pointed at the mattress. "Bed."

"Yeah," Rick agreed, massaging his temples. He could feel the harsh stubble on his cheeks. "Been in bed for a while."

She looked at him thoughtfully, and crawled over to where he sat, knees rustling across the hardwood floor. She tugged at the hem of his pants.

"Ick," she said decisively.

Rick's eyebrow twitched. "Hey," he warned. "No need to- no need for insults."

"No," she shook her head. "Nono. Ick." She patted his foot. "Ick."

"I, uh, don't understand," Rick said, putting his hands on his knees.

The kid was starting to look frustrated. "Ick! Ick!"

"Uh... Rick? My name is Rick," Rick said.

"No! Ick!" She patted his foot again, then stood a bit shakily, supporting her weight by leaning on his shin. "Doc."

"Doc? Um... sick?" Rick guessed.

"Si!" The baby's face brightened. "Sisi. Ick. Doc," she explained.

"Huh," Rick mused. "Yeah, I guess I'm sick. You speak Spanish?"

"Si," she agreed.

"¿Por qué viniste aquí?" he tested.

"'Que ick," she said, not missing a beat. Rick raised a dubious eyebrow.

"¿Y dónde e-están tus padres?"

"Out," she replied simply.

Rick looked at her with some concern. She obviously understood every word he was saying, in at least two languages.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Mun."

"Moon?"

"Mun."

"Ah... got it," he said uncertainly. Who was this kid?

Mun tugged again at the seam of his pants. "Up pease."

"Oh... you want me to pick you up?"

She looked at him with exasperation. "Obvio."

"Are y-you sure that's a good idea?"

"Si. Po'que ick."

Rick cast a worried glance at the door. Was Mun even supposed to be in here?

"Up," she whined, before amending the statement with another, "pease."

Rick sighed. If he was hallucinating, then it wouldn't matter if he picked the kid up or not. Right? He bent over at the waist, scooting forward to the very edge of the bed. With shaking arms, he gingerly lifted Mun up onto the bed with him. She was warm, and a bit heavier than he had expected. He sat her on his lap.

The girl wasted no time in her examination. She placed a chubby hand on Rick's face, looking intently at his eyes and nose. She seemed confused. "No cold?"

Rick's eyes finally registered understanding. "No," he agreed. "No, I'm not that kind of sick."

"How?"

"Well..." He scratched the back of his neck with one hand. Somehow, this kid made him feel incredibly self conscious. "Sometimes people get sick in their brains. It's, uh, a chemical imbalance."

"¿Que es?"

"It's like... when you get r-really sad. Really, really sad."

"Why?"

"Why do people get sad?"

"Why you 'ad?"

Rick blinked. "Eh... well... what do you know about death, kid?"

"Mue'te," she said, nodding sagely. "Out. Siempe."

"Uh, yeah. Out forever."

"You 'ad po'que mue'te."

Rick hesitated. A sharp pain flashed across the inside of his chest. He looked away, refusing to make eye contact. "Yeah. I'm sad because m-my... someone died."

Mun looked pleased with herself. "Si! Ick," she said, nodding as if solving the mystery would somehow cure the old man.

Rick didn't say anything for a long time. He swallowed painfully. When he placed his hand on the child's shoulder, the digits nearly engulfed her entire upper arm. "Yeah," he whispered, voice sandpaper. "I guess I'm sick."

"Up pease?" Mun asked again.

"I, um," he started, sniffing. With his free hand, he swiped at his eyes, which were leaking moisture onto his cheeks. "I don't think it's a good idea, kiddo."

"Pease."

There was a light knock at the door. Rick startled. His grip on the child tightened a fraction, so as not to drop her. Mun whined lightly in protest.

"You ought to do what she says," said the voice at the door. It was a rich baritone, laced with a prim British accent. "There's really no arguing with Rosamund, I'm afraid." The voice belonged to a tall man in a long, heavy black coat. His hair was dark, and his face was perfectly unreadable.

"A-a-are you this kid's father?" Rick asked in as calm a tone as he could muster.

"No," said the man. "But I am her godfather."

Notes: This came as something of a fever dream, and I have no real context for why Sherlock and John would take Rick into their home. However, I felt as though it needed to be written, so I wrote it, in the way most hobbyist writers take pen to paper, in approximately forty minutes. It's not pretty. It's not finished. Sorry.

As with all of my stories, maybe I'll continue it. Maybe I won't. Who knows?